


Feral

by The_LupercalXVI



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Dae - Freeform, Feral, Gen, Healers, Heiza, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 17:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_LupercalXVI/pseuds/The_LupercalXVI
Summary: Life is hard trying to survive in a world where there is more desert than anything else. But no matter how tough a situation, it can always get worse.The question is not "How bad can it get?"The question is "How can we make something good out of the bad?"





	Feral

_“You know better than to come in when I’m experimenting,” he teased, holding up a vial of blood. She laughed and ran a hand through her long black hair._

_“I know better on a lot of things, but I wanted to bring you breakfast. You’ve been working since yesterday morning and never came for a meal.”_

_He looked at her, his face slightly sagging and his eyes carrying heavy bags. She was right, and the loaf of bread with a nice, albeit small, slab of roasted lamb smelled amazing. Most families couldn’t afford to eat lamb for smaller meals, but the work they did with magic and healing earned them luxuries._

_“Fine, fine, I’ll eat. Let me just finish up this tonic. Shouldn’t take long,” he said, turning back to his alchemical set. It was made from marble, bronze, and glass; again, most healers couldn’t afford the things they had, even successful healers, but they had only lost one person their entire four summer career._

_“Take your time, but also look at how old you appear. Need a beard, really,” she teased back, settling on a stool made from ram’s horns and stretched leather. Gently she hummed, putting the food down on a shelf next to her and pulling out a strip of parchment and a small vial of her favorite ink. She tugged her quill down from behind her ear and began writing out a short poem, scratching through words as she thought of better ones._

_“Ah ha—damn!” he shouted, backing away from the set. It was boiling over, the blood oozing out over the edge of the clay table he was using, expanding rapidly._

_“Heiza, we’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled as fumes began to fill the windowless hut. She nodded to him and stood, rapidly tucking her parchment and quill in her leather satchel as she started towards the door. He had opened the flap and pinned it to the post above, and stood just outside beckoning her to hurry. She smiled at him as she scurried to the door, only to collapse as something behind her exploded. The vials containing the volatile liquid had broken, and the glass was now embedded in the back of her head and spine. Heiza was determined to get out of the hut, though, and not too concerned with the strange sensations seething through her skin as she shoved herself back to her feet and escaped. Within ten minutes, the wards they had set had consumed the remains of their home._

_“Heiza, you…are bleeding a lot, we need to get you to a healer with supplies,” he muttered, his eyes sunken as their lives faded into puffs of smoke. As he focused on his twin sister, though, they began to water._

_“For now, I should rest,” Heiza whispered, carefully plucking out the shards of glass she could reach. The pain was everywhere inside of her, starting to move outside. Perhaps she had inhaled too many of the fumes, or perhaps there was something on the shards? It would pass soon, she was certain, focusing on taking deep breaths of fresh air and trying to slow the pounding of her heart. Panic would only intensify the pain._

_“Alright,” her twin said reluctantly, sitting beside her in the shade and taking her free hand. He was very concerned, but when her skin began to sweat and harden, he knew there wasn’t time to rest anymore. He stood and pulled her onto his back and started running towards the next village, no flask of water or anything on him aside from his standard robes. Heiza wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as he ran, her breath growing more and more shallow. The pain was spreading and she was having some reaction to whatever he had been trying to make. It would be fine, though, the healer in the next village had a lot of medicines. She would drink a few and sleep off the worst of it._

_The first sound she heard she thought her brother had stepped on something sharp. Then she felt something warm dripping down her forehead. Something had hit her in the head, obviously, and she leaned forward weakly, closing her eyes. It would be fine. It had to be fine._

_Then the pain became too much for her to bear and she shrieked, her brother stumbling twice before finally falling to the ground. She shoved herself away from him, blood pouring down her face and she couldn’t get it to stop. A loud crack of bone sounded, followed by two more, and she hit her knees as her skin tore open from the inside and horns began to sprout from her skull. The pain lasted what felt like hours as chunks of flesh and blood dropped to the sands beneath her. The grinding, crunching, cracking pierced the air around them, and she shrieked again, barely able to catch her breath between screams._

_“Go…go…help…” she panted as the pain suddenly stopped and she fell flat on the ground. Her heart was pounding too hard for her to try and relax, and deep inside she knew this was only the beginning. Her brother refused to leave her side, and she couldn’t blame him. She was confident that she would be dead soon and had to make sure he knew it wasn’t his fault. Experiments can go wrong, he did all he could to protect her._

_“Is…is oka…okay, lo—love,” she managed before the pain started to creep back up her back. This time it focused on her shoulders and the pressure made her press her chest into the ground, gasping for some taste of relief. All she got was blood and sweat._

_“Heiza, please, please don’t leave me,” her twin begged. Just as he reached for her hands, she felt two knots just at her shoulder blades. Growing masses, stretching the skin until finally a loud ‘pop’ had them pierce through. She tried to scream again, but could only gurgle, both blood and spit dumping from her mouth. Her arms would not move as the growths continued, cutting down her back and hardening into thick protrusions of something between bone and flesh. The pain then stopped again, long enough for her to catch her breath and notice her fingernails had turned into claws, and her skin was darkening around them. _

_“I’m…dying?” she asked as her gut emptied itself, along with more blood—which she realized was coming from her mouth—and yellow liquids that didn’t seem natural. She didn’t have time to wonder what they were, though, as agony began twisting her spine and legs. Her thighs got thicker, but shorter, and there were slurping noises around the squeaking of shrinking bones. Her body quivered and the skin on her back bubbled before hardening, gaining tints of black and red around the spine, with brown tones closer to her stomach. Her eyes widened as dozens of tiny clicks sounded behind her, then just as many piercing pricks lined down her spine. She didn’t know what it was, but it felt like her backbone was tearing through her skin._

_Heiza’s thick, talon-like fingernails dug into the sands and vomit in front of her as her back curved more, knees involuntarily pushing forward so her toes—her now webbed, long toes with the same talon-nails on them curled into the ground. She felt her ankles snap and bellowed out the best scream she could manage around her larger tongue and sharper teeth, almost collapsing when her brother caught her._

_“Heiza, I’m so sorry, so sorry, please, please forgive me for messing up, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, his tears falling into the piles of liquids her body had refused to keep._

_“Not…faul..” she started, but could not finish. Her stomach gurgled, and most of her skin began to sizzle as scales cut through the softer flesh. The only part of her remaining mostly human so far was her face, aside from the mouth. She stared at the ground, feeling her nose sharpen and trying to stand up on her strange legs, wanting to run away from the nightmare she was becoming. Instead, she watched her arms thicken and lengthen to match her legs—was she becoming some form of animal?_

_Her ankles began to mend themselves, snapping and popping into place as her foot grew and her calves shortened, developing muscles that would help her leap. She coughed as she adjusted to the massive tongue curled in her mouth, noting it was slightly pointed and much longer than her human tongue._

_Heiza looked at her twin brother one more time in horror as he held her as close as possible between broken cries. And then the pain slammed into her forehead, as though someone had stabbed her with a rusty dagger, piercing the skull and mauling her brain. She wheezed and quit trying to move, only able to feel as her body finished its transformation. She closed her eyes, praying for death, or at least to wake from this nightmare, and realized she could still see. From her forehead. A third eye that she could only close if she focused._

_“Heiza, I swear I’ll find help for you,” her twin whimpered as he tried to pull her off the ground. Words had stopped making sense, but she forced herself to try one more time._

_“Love…you…D—”_

_And then the world was gone._


End file.
